Correspondence: Hanoch Yerushalmi, Ph.D., Department of Community Mental Health, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel Haifa 31905, Israel. e-mail: HYERUSH1@UNIV.HAIFA.AC.IL

¹is an associate professor in the Department of Community Mental Health at the University of Haifa, Israel. He has served for 15 years as the Director of the Student Counseling Service at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. He is a private practitioner in Israel and serves as a consultant to the Counseling Center at the University of Haifa.

Abstract

This paper considers situations of personal crisis, which lead to experiences of extreme helplessness and emotional upheaval. It is suggested that although crises may be precipitated by either external or internal events, all crisis situations have a common denominator. What is common to all crises is the disruption and then restitution of the ability to withstand paradox in the experience of the self. Although there is wide variety in the nature of the personal crisis, all crisis situations have similar structural features. Crises are so dramatic and so frequent a phenomenon in the human experience that they warrant serious and thorough investigation of their nature. Because crisis situations are on the one hand so disabling and potentially destructive and on the other hand can open doors to growth and development, they are extremely valuable to deepen our understanding of how crises develop and unfold.